Blackarps.1974

WvW specific: Boon balling/surfing needs addressing as well as all the options to play support. There's just too much support and not enough damage to the point where everyone is running in circles and smaller groups stand absolutely zero chance even if they are more skilled at the game. Its sad that now we might have to go another half a year before this actually gets addressed.

Started on FA and played for a few months. Moved to JQ until all the tournaments were over. Then moved around for about a year and have been on Mag ever since. I did go to EU one summer and that was a terrible experience but mainly because of the guild I played with. It was also really weird seeing the different play styles. NA roamed a lot better and more than EU but also played waaaay more cheese builds. EU also had a weird problem of players just laying around waiting for a res while NA players would run back. EU was also way better at hard CC and put it more into their callouts.

The lack of understanding of the WvW meta is quite concerning. Excess barriers, lack of skills to do damage, boon uptime and boon application to allow for "surfing", lack of strips and corruption of boons, amounts of sources for healing, high stability counts. There's just no way to stop a zerg with less numbers anymore. You are forced to blob or just watch a group karma train. Skill is out the window when the game plays for you.

Balance rewards. Not being able to earn even half the gold per hour as literally mashing 1 button in open world PvE is super lame. Add big world boss style chests for taking T3 structures and give them plenty of loot inside that can be auto-looted. Badges of honor could be tied to killing players more which would be used to buy rewards. This would artificially force players to fight more for better rewards instead of hiding in keeps or way-pointing away.Fix bugs in the game since launch (dolyak paths breaking, stuck in walls, gates not opening, etc.)Actual GvG support and not just a ring and "here use this".Lowered siege cap per structureLevel terrain to make better use of GW2's combat system. All ranged skills are actually sent from your feet to other players despite what you see visually. There are way too many instances of "Obstructed", especially on desert BL.Better reward tracks. Potentially allow us to get legendary gifts needed for legendary weapons even if it requires the track to be completed multiple times. Tracks also need to give more unique rewards.Tied to point 1, raw gold given in skirmish track.Balance the layout of some towers and keeps to make them more interesting.Something more to spend badges of honor and skirmish tickets onUpdate trebs to use AOE instead of holding 1 down to prevent botsPotentially look into anti-pin sniping ideas.More WvW themed gliders and maybe another mount skin (expensive to make for Anet)Potentially eliminate T3 structures. There is a reason (multiple reasons actually) everyone loves reset each week.AlliancesMap changes to keep things interesting. Many companies already do this and it works in keeping games interesting without adding tons of new content. It doesn't have to be much. Rotation of towers, changing terrain, removing SMC outer walls...somethingIf they want skirmishes to be short, they need to make upgrading structures not take as long and make it more rewarding for each skrimish win. I imagine these kinds of changes will happen after alliances are in place but its something that needs to happen. What's the point of making a tick 4 minutes and a skirmish 120 minutes if it potentially takes hours to fully upgrade a keep?Bloodlust is boring, remove it or change it up again.Remove auras that straight buff player stats in or around structures introduced with HoT.Add more mercenary camps to other maps and make them interesting.More tactivator upgrades. Maybe add NPCs that auto repair walls for 20 minutes for example. More options would be nice.Scalable commander tags to make them easier to see in combat.More WvW centric balance updatesMore WvW abilities/masteriesBetter communication from developersA way to earn infusions and other very rare items in the game without leaving WvW plus a few WvW themed ones.That's all I got for now....

You just have to know the Anet schedule for content releases. Gemstore, every other week. PvE open world every other month. PvE raids are every 9-12 months. Fractals same as raids, PvP once a year. WvW once every 1.5-2 years.

Gold is a better option than items because gold holds its value better. The only other option would be to add a vendor in spawn for badges of honor to allow us to buy various tiers of items. The problem with that solution is that a lot of us have 50k+ badges and it would crash the economy unless a weekly cap is added to the buy options. If raw gold is added to the tracks, Anet will need to step up their game to kick the people doing minimum work to keep participation up to semi-AFK farm gold. One way to solve this is by capping an objective or killing a player is the only way to award participation. Defending, sentries, and monuments would have to be ruled out for participation which wouldn't be a big deal. Either way, we need more gold income and I would prefer raw gold. Even 50 extra gold per week would help a lot. 10,000 rank, hundreds of thousands of kills...nothing to show for it.

No. Content is considered something new being created and added to the game. Balance is just adjusting the way the game is already played.

It would be a good change overall but we've gone so long now, I don't know if the difference even matters anymore. Its almost to the point that if Anet said they are shutting down WvW, I'd be sad for a week and get over it. Its hard to care so much about something that others seemingly don't. I know CMC doesn't like hearing when we say devs don't care but its not entirely untrue either. Sure, they care but the point is, why the wait? Why aren't more resources pushed towards the development so it can finally come out and not be a meme anymore? Would Anet really lose that much money if some programmers (or whatever is needed) moved over for a few weeks? Keeping players in the dark is what starts memes and bad-mouthing. Communication is key to designing a product people can actually continue to enjoy.

Is it out of the question to have more mastery insights per episode? That way we could have more options to pick and choose from to level our masteries and aren't stuck doing some of the more mundane tasks like completing the Jormag Rising/Drizzlewood Coast meta 10 times. As others have mentioned. Please adjust the end chests not to be scattered around the map after the final meta or at least explain why this was done. It would also be nicer if this meta was a bit shorter. Long metas with no time for breaks is exhausting.

What I've seen mentioned a lot is the addition of reward. The problem with WvW is that its saturated by the same loot for years. It doesn't get updated enough to balance out the economy to provide any profit for players. The amount of gold you spend on changing gear and buying mats for food, tactics, and siege means you're lucky if you really profit much at all. Maybe 4-5 gold over a couple of hours? Also, if Anet adds something like more Mystic Coins to the skirmish tracks, its only going to bring that value down slowly if there isn't any introduction to make them hold their value. One case of this are unidentified dyes. Their value has steadily dropped ever since they became rewards in skirmish chests. More and more people have all the dyes they need and no real need for unidentified ones so the value of them drops as the supply rises. Anet really just needs to make containers you can buy with some kind of new currency. I think if they did it with skirmish tickets or badges of honor, the economy would crash but I'm also against adding even more currencies to the game. If they don't want to go this route, just give us junk items to sell or raw gold and call it a day. Making legendary shards that currently drop also hold a gold value would also help a little. Either way, we need better rewards in terms of gold income.

They’re quite strong in PvE and arguably too strong in pvp, though. Not everything needs to be good in all 3 game modes (and quite frankly can’t really be from a design standpoint since each game mode requires really specific things in order for a skill to be “good” for that mode). I agree that everything doesn't need to be good for every game mode but that doesn't mean it should be completely useless either, that's just how balance works. The more options we have, the healthier the balance. I'm also suggesting they be improved for WvW specifically. They are good elsewhere but need adjustment when it comes to player caps which is affected most in WvW. The problem is that increasing the cap to 10 is a functionality change and therefore will affect PvE as well. They can’t (or at least haven’t for anything else so I will assume can’t/refuse to) change the target cap unless it affects all modes. They’ve said previously that they can split skills (numbers, etc) but can’t/won’t split functionality (target cap, what a skill does, etc.) Your other suggestion is to make the spirits invuln/immune to CC so they can be useful against zergs, but that also has the same issue as the above; it’s a functionality change and therefore would need to happen for all modes. Lastly, let’s look at how good the skills are for WvW zergs in general (even assuming 10man + invulnerable spirits and assuming the current push meta) 1) Breakrazor: is okay, while providing 50% condi reduction is nice and passive healing for 10s, with how mobile WvW is it easily gets eclipsed by any sort of mobile support (I.e scrapper, FB). Also with how many fast cleanses exist in an organized Zerg the 50% damage reduction from condis really doesn’t do anything. 2) Razorclaw: extra bleeding stacks. Not useful at all against any sort of organized group, the extra damage is minuscule and will get immediately cleansed anyway. And again the radius, even though a huge 360, is still too small to really benefit allies in mobile WvW. 3) Darkrazor: easily the best spirit for WvW assuming it had invulnerability (and even better if 10 man), but still outclassed by things like Scourge Shades. Definitely useful against enemies without stab, but as long as they have Stab it’s just a 6 pulse stab stripper (still good). Would be most useful with coordinated corrupts/boon strips. Darkrazor being good doesn’t make up for the rest of the kit being bad for WvW though. 4) Icerazor: kitten tier damage spirit for WvW Zerg play, even with the above buffs. Single target random focus means it has no real pressure against big groups. It has projectiles which get destroyed by any semi-organized group so it can’t even do its damage. The condis aren’t even that useful since, again, single target and mass cleanses exist in zergs. As bad as Razorclaw for Zerg play imo. Would need a complete rework to be useful or have some sort of unblockable ricochet or splinter mechanic. 5) Soulcleave: theoretically could be pretty useful if you can place it right and with the right timing for coordinated attacks. However, feels like it might be a “win more” button to me than actually useful and still has the same issues that all the other support spirits do; WvW is mobile and people need to stand in them. Its cast time exacerbates this issue even further since by the time it finally activates the Zerg is already passing through it. While I understand and appreciate that you want them to be better for WvW, it’s just important to remember that 1) functionality changes have to affect all modes so things like increasing target caps can’t be done without careful considerations and perhaps even more importantly 2) most of the skills themselves, even if super buffed, don’t really lend themselves towards being useful in a highly mobile, WvW Zerg environment. I'm aware of functionality changes but when it comes to PvP, it wouldn't mean much as you don't have more than 5 people to begin with. As far as PvE, affecting 10 but lowering the buff would be a necessary change needed as well. One of the biggest problem with splitting skills between modes is that it becomes less user friendly when you swap between them and expect same functionality. This is why I think just changing their overall function as how gyros got tweaked is a potential way to go. I'm not saying that specifically but we can't ignore the fact that something should be done with them. There are too many useless specs because Anet's way of balancing is to just nerf what's too strong instead of look at the core functionality of each skill, trait, and utility as they affect the entire game. The problem with every one of your points though is that they die instantly. Yeah, it sounds good on paper but in actual situations, they don't work. You don't get any buffs from them in WvW. I've been trying to use them for weeks now and there are only two times they don't die instantly. One is when you are just zerging down a lord and the other is small group fights. As for the latter, they are still exceptionally weak as its very easy to kill or avoid.

They’re quite strong in PvE and arguably too strong in pvp, though. Not everything needs to be good in all 3 game modes (and quite frankly can’t really be from a design standpoint since each game mode requires really specific things in order for a skill to be “good” for that mode). I agree that everything doesn't need to be good for every game mode but that doesn't mean it should be completely useless either, that's just how balance works. The more options we have, the healthier the balance. I'm also suggesting they be improved for WvW specifically. They are good elsewhere but need adjustment when it comes to player caps which is affected most in WvW.

I wanted to test a condi build last week and yeah, they are pretty terrible. Traits and shortbow are just okay with nothing too special about them. Citadel Bombardment feel weak against anyone on the move/not downed. Orders from Above and Heroic Command are fantastic. A lot of might and alacrity from them which kind of make Kalla/Renegade worth using alone. Then you get to the utilities. Just terrible in nearly every instance for WvW. I'm not even sure what to propose to make them viable. Make them all 10 targets, have them function as wells, or add some kind of extra condis/damage to each that aren't overused for other classes. Maybe have Darkrazor's Daring give alacrity, Icerazor to chill instead of cripple, and give Razorclaw, taunt. All this while lowering the torment application for condi rev via mace/axe would be decent in theory. Either way, they need to be buffed to at least be usable in WvW. Immune to damage and stuns would be a good start.

Score means nothing unless I'm stuck in T1 fighting blobs 24/7. There is 0 enjoyment or skill when fighting blobs. Win or lose, its not fun.

Thief and rev definitely the top two right now. Thief has to pick and choose more of their fights than before but still have good spike damage and mobility. Rev has a bit of everything. Condi, power, healing, CC, mobility. I still see quite a bit of rangers too because pew pew is easy.